Various proposals have been made with respect to the arrangements for providing lengthwise sliding movement of the cutter head, including various forms of guidance. However, these prior proposals suffer from various shortcomings including a lack of lateral stability for the cutter head, undue free movement of the cutter head in use, leading to inaccurate cutting, imperfect alignment of the cutter head with respect to the clamp bar, and difficulties of adjustment of the cutter head with respect to the clamp bar so as to achieve a satisfactory compromise between free running and adequate guidance.
It will be understood that in cutting machines of the kind concerned, considerable downward loading on the cutter head is exerted by the user, and thus the machine must provide adequate support to accommodate this loading. Likewise, the cutter head must be freely slidable so that cutting is effected with an easy sliding action. Moreover, it will also be readily apparent that any slop or slack in the system will lead to inaccurate cutting, which could lead to visually unsatisfactory products.
In short, previous proposals in this regard have provided an unsatisfactory compromise between guidance, support and avoidance of lost motion in the system, and it is an objection of the present invention to provide improvements in one or more of the respects discussed above, or generally.
A further aspect of the invention relates to the mounting of the clamp bar.
Previous proposals in this regard provide a pair of spaced arms between which the clamp bar is connected, and means is provided for raising and lowering the clamp bar to permit insertion of matter to be cut.
However, previous proposals have generally provided a fabricated system using conventional mounting and connection techniques between the base board, the spaced arms and the clamp bar. The shortcoming of this previous arrangement has become evident when machines of this sort have been used, in recent times, for cutting thicker and thicker materials. In short, the clamp bar is unable satisfactorily to accommodate these thicker materials, and does not sit squarely and easily thereon during use. This leads to difficulties for the user, and unsatisfactory results, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a cutting machine of the kind set forth offering improvements in relation to one or more of these respects, or generally.